I’m currently doing research to find if these things are even profitable or if they are just personal boosts.

Preferably I’d like to see it as a potential career, eg. Run a town of NPCs on your island to produce goods. This town could be powered by the player doing a ton of stuffs or preferably, a market could be created for journals.

An imaginary typical situation:
I’m out gathering tier 4 or 5 materials all day. I fill a few journals, but have already sent my labourer out on a job to earn more Albion Online Silver. Well, no sense making my time worth less, so I’m going to keep filling journals. I’ll sell them. They aren’t intrinsically worth much because I keep the resources gathered, but I can’t effectively use them. I’ll sell them to make a little extra buck making my time worth more. I’ll sell them on the market for a couple thousand silver.

This kind of thinking is very healthy for the economy as it increases your net worth with zero extra effort (you carry around very light books in your inventory and make money in return for the work you’re going to do regardless).